The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-02-16
Warming and Lighting Cars.


the substitution of a safe car-heating
appliance for the stove now in use on
all railroads. The opinions of practi-
cal railroad men, to say nothing of
those of able editors and other writers
on the subject, are so conflicting that it
is seen that it is by no means the sim
pie matter which it seems. 1t is stated
that on one railroad there is small
boiler under each car which is filed
with drip from the engine. On another
railroad the cars of one train at least
are heated by steam conveyed directly
from the engine. 1t has been asserted,
however, that these methods have
proved inadequate to warm the cars
comfortably in the coolest weather or
on long trips. The Reading railroad
has been heating some of its cars with
heaters outside the cars, but two cars
have recently been burned by these
outside heaters. Other plans are to
warm with hot water and with hot air,
but it is said that these would re-
quire the use of fires either in or I'M
der the cars. The chief difficulty of
heating with steam from the engine is
associated with the making and re-
making of trains en- route and the ne
cessity of detaching the engine for
considerable periods; but the Tribune
suggests that it seems partly possible
to meet this difficulty by keeping an
engine at the principal stations ex-
pressly to warm the cars, or by con-
Meeting them with a stationary boiler.
Chauncy M. Depew of the New York
Central railroad says steam heat is out
of the question and can't be made to
heat cars going at the rate of fifty miles
an hour. He suggests fre-proof cars.
Mr. Pullman also considers heating by
steam impracticable and says there is
but one way to warm a train properly,
and that is by putting a stove in each
car. He proposes accordingly that be-
sides being strongly built each stove
should be placed in compartment by
itself. This compartment should be
well braced with wrought-iron, so as to
be capable of resisting severe shock,
and might be made detachable also, so
that in the event of a collision, derail-
ment or other accident which would
produce shock of sufficient force to
break stove, the entire compartment,
stove and all, would break and fall
away from car. Both compartment
and stove should, moreover, be kept
securely locked.
Further, in regard to heating cars
from the locomotive, it is suggested
that unless some new method can be
invented than that now in use for con-
Quoting the steam there would be liza
bility to accidents and death from
breakage of the conductors and the
sudden escape of scalding steam. The
Boston Herald has suggested the heat
ing of train through the friction of
its own motion, but this is pronounced
to be clearly impracticable. The same
paper suggests the possible use of
chemicals for this purpose, but it does
not venture to claim that this affords
practical solution of the problem. The
nearest approach to something of real
value, to which allusion has already
been made, is the system now being
experimental with by the Boston &
Albany road of heating the cars through
a conductor connected with the engine.
The engine has to be hitched to train
about half an hour before start is to
be made. The inventors claim that
there is no danger of scalding by steam
in collision, as the pressure is light;
that there is no danger of obstruction
by condensation or freezing in the con-
ductors; that the system gives an equal
temperature in the cars, and that by its
use there is an annual saving of $50 to
$50 per car. Whether all of these
claims will stand the test of experience
or not remains to be seen. If the sys-
tenn should prove entirely successful,
it will be one of the few of the several
hundred inventions designed to solve
the problem of combining safety with
heat which has been deemed worthy of
an extended trial. The Boston Jour
nal describes an invention of r. Il.
White of that city for heating by hot
water, as follows:
Upon a small, single truck-car between
the tender and the baggage-car of the train
is carried boiler with suitable furnace,
coal bunkers and place for a man to at
tend to it. On the top of the boiler is
double-acting pump and by this the hot
water is forced through pipes in the cars
and returned to the boiler to be reheated.
The pipes run along each side of the car
under the seats and are connected between
each car by rubber hose with automatic
couplings. The pipes on either side of the
car are separate from each other and are
attached by separate couplings, so that but
half the heating capacity may be used at
one time, If all is not required. The pump
works slowly and is expected to have suffi-
Gent steam from its own boiler to work it,
or it can be connected with the engine An